gamay9 Barbara Hershey was about age 56 when this film was released but she appears younger than in 'The Right Stuff' (1984). In fact, her face looks like a female Kenny Rogers bot-ox job. Her lips are full, cheeks puffy, nothing like the salt-of-the-air earthy looks she had during filming of 'The Right Stuff.' She looks almost like a computer animation.As far as Allen is concerned, he is paranoid, but matures normally and becomes a solid citizen, without any medical intervention. Every time he becomes stressed, his alter-ego tries to tell him what to do and he ends up hallucinating. The longest hallucination is when he bumps his head in a cemetery and is out for a prolonged period of time as he meets George, the Elvis wan-a-bee driving the Plymouth Fury.I didn't read the Stephen King story so I don't know if this was a good or bad screen adaptation. It certainly isn't 'Cat's Eye' or 'Storm of th Century.'

Scarecrow-88 During Halloween night of 1969, a college student Alan Parker(Jonathan Jackson), a possible future artist obsessed with death, takes to the road on a surreal nightmarish odyssey hitchhiking to his home town in Maine to visit his mother in the hospital after she suffered a stroke. Along the way Alan experiences near-death encounters with troubled drivers such as a farmer(Cliff Robertson)whose suffering with prostrate problems and the loss of his wife appropriately to a stroke, a returning Vietnam soldier as a wannabe-hippie in disguise, and a Grim-Reaper like Ferryman, George Staub(David Arquette, going way off the deep end, camping it up with all his might)who gives him a difficult choice to make. Alan's father committed suicide, but his mother Jean(Barbara Hershey)had claimed it as a car accident for her son's sake. A memory that haunts Alan was his not riding a roller-coaster called The Bullet. Alan has a love-interest back at the university, Jessica(Erika Christensen)who has tried to shake him from this whole death obsession that has plagued their relationship..he shuts himself off from others due to a troubled past where his boozing mother and missing father created a void for living.For most of the film's duration we follow Alan on desolate, wet, misty roads surrounded by forests as he encounters troubling, often hallucinatory images of his mother and past memories. Director Mich Garris likes to toy with the audience by showing something that occurs to Alan, only to show that it didn't really happen, but was merely conjured up by him..it's as if Garris is showing a rash of possible situations created in the mind of a very tormented soul, snuffed out one by one as the ultimate obstacle awaits Alan, his meeting with the Grim Reaper. When Alan starts his journey, and we follow him, Garris doesn't allow the comfort of following the narrative without some sort of jarring jolt within the plot..such as two hunters who chase after Alan, a rabid dog that eats a rabbit before getting hit by a diesel, or a crow eating dead possum on the side of the road asking him what the "youknowwhat" was he looking at before becoming mush into a car grill. I felt the film is ultimately about embracing what time you have on this earth and Alan has that chance, but will he sacrifice his mother for that opportunity? The way Garris directs this film, often tossing wild ideas at the viewer such as a "guiding voice", which looks exactly like Alan, often trying to tell him what to say, or the constant flashbacks of Alan as a child/teenager with his mother, might add fuel to growing haters of his work. He can not help himself in this film..it's an odd duck for sure, this movie. I felt he was trying to toy with the idea of "is anything Alan actually sees real?" and for most I guess Garris doesn't succeed. You be the judge. My favorite scene has the Grim Reaper coming to visit him as he lays in his bathtub contemplating suicide by a razor-blade, rooting for Alan to slice his wrists.

whpratt1 Alan Parker, (Jonathan Jackson) plans on seeing the Beatles perform in Canada in 1969 with a few of his buddies and then has bad news about his mother having a stroke and being in a hospital in Maine. Alan Parker is a college student who likes to draw pictures, but he is always thinking about death and in many ways wants to die. Alan has no car and so he decides to hitchhike a ride to the town where his mother is in the hospital. However, there is constant flashbacks to Alan's early childhood and he meets up with some very strange people who want to give him a ride. Cliff Robertson, (Farmer) offers Alan a ride and the old farmer acts very strangely and has a very bad smell in his car. This is another way out Steven King film which is not really as good as some of his other Horror films.

thimiost As a horror film it doesn't scare.As a psychological thriller doesn't get you anxious.I think that they tried to balance between them and fell into the river.The acting though wasn't bad.Music was good too.Haven't read the book to know if the plot sticks to the movie but it was a little swallow.It is a bad replica of the shining with the other characters except the main having anything to offer.Especially the grim reaper character who was just for laughs.Do your self a favor.Don't lose your time watching this movie.I like horror movies but this ain't one.It is more like a comedy with bad acting except the main character who wasn't anything special either.